A simple kind of life
by Kimmydreamer
Summary: Nathan and Peter's childhood as I like to imagine it.


A wee! fic about a moment of Nathan and Peter's childhood, or at least their childhood as I like to imagine it. Peter is five years and a half, Nathan seventeen.

A simple kind of life.

Nathan hid the packet of cigarettes in his pocket when he heard the noise of too well known light steps approaching along the corridor: for how much his brother could love him (maybe not as much as he did, but almost), he still had a discrete incapacity to keep his mouth shut when it had to be done, and such a tip-off would with no doubt contribute to make dangerously vacillate his mother's promise to award him with a month in England if his diploma will be 'satisfactory'.

And as he could have foreseen, a handful of seconds and he found in front of him that abundant meter of ruffled hair and big eyes, with an open notebook pending from one hand and a pencil in the other.

"This is right?" asked impatient the child, throwing under his face a page crammed with PETERs written punctually with the R upside down. Nathan forced himself to remain serious, but it was quite difficult: the relation of his little brother with some letters was still dramatic – even if no letter exceeded the level of tragedy and wounds to little Peter's pride like the R, present – as if this wouldn't be enough – both in his first name and in his surname. Five years and a half and a month from the beginning of elementary school, it had been their mother to insist for him to become one of that children _above the average _who arrive at school's desk already capable of writing, and Peter and that crooked smile that no physic law was yet able to explain had shown themselves suddenly enthusiastic about the whole thing. Him, Nathan, continued to think that they were all foolishnesses, and when the woman had told him that twelve years earlier he had been victim of the same (and sad) fate, he had found himself relieved of not remembering it.

"… you did the R upside down"

"Where?"

"Everywhere, Peter, you don't see they're all the same?"

A sulky expression appeared on the child's face. "Mom told me to do it this way"

Nathan rose an eyebrow. "Sure?"

"Yes! You don't believe me? Ack her"

"A_what_…?"

Peter seized his arm. "Ack-he-r! To mom!"

Nathan snorted to mask a laugh. "Ask her, Peter"

"Eh! What did I say? A-…"

"It's okay, let it go"

The child sat on the sofa beside him. "Now I write also yours"

Nathan scraped his nape. "Uhm, that's difficult. There is the aitch"

Peter addressed him a dazzling smile. "I can do it! … look here" and by saying this – holding the pencil in a totally absurd way, so that Nathan couln't really explain himself how the hell it didn't slip away – traced a confused aitch, with both the bars twisted.

"Here"

Nathan nodded. "Yeah, do it, then"

"Mh" the child thought about it for a bit. "N, a, t, a, n… ?"

"… with the aitch, you already forgot it"

Peter threw him a disapproving look, before bringing up the notebook so that his brother couldn't see and scratching something, more concentrated than ever. "Don't spy"

Nathan rolled the eyes. "You have the face stuck on the paper, Pete, how can I spy!"

"Look. I told you I was able" Peter showed him the notebook with the proudest expression, and this time, indeed, Nathan just couldn't stay serious.

The writing was enormous, bigger than all the others, and he was ready to swear that the kid had even engaged himself to make it particularly neat. The problem is that 'HNATAN' was one of those things that it was indispensable to have such a little bird wandering around the home for twenty-four hours a day to understand.

"What do you laugh at!" exclaimed Peter outraged, crossing the arms on his chest.

"You don't have to put the aitch there" explained the brother, trying to stop laughing. 

"If you don't tell me…!"

"Here, look" Nathan pointed the space between the 't' and the 'a'. "It must be here"

Peter seemed to take in consideration the situation. "And then it's right?"

"Mh mh" Nathan nodded, and a little smile appeared on the face of his little brother. Who would have started to write again, if it wouldn't have been for the noise of heels suddenly hearable from behind the door, which made him whiten. 

An instant later, Angela Petrelli had reached them, making Peter jump with both legs on the sofa, before he squatted down against his brother's arm.

"Okay, baby, let's do it quickly" said the woman compliant, but Peter drew back even more. 

"No, no, no! I beg you…"

Nathan open his eyes wide, before looking at his mother and then at his brother. "What's up…!"

Peter resurfaced, a grimace of pure horror painted on his face. "Mom wants to tie my tooth to the handle and slam the door!"

Angela rolled the eyes. "Can I know who tells you these stupidities?"

"Dad tells that when he was little they did it" the child whimpered.

The older of the boys looked at his mother with a frowning look. "What is this story?"

The woman sighed resigned. "You aren't going to believe what you're brother is saying. We just have to take away the tooth that is moving, there is the other growing underneath it"

"But it hurts!"

"Peter, you want to go at the doctor's and make her do it…?"

The kid shook furiously his head, and Angela threw to Nathan what her son enjoyed interpreting as a s.o.s. look. "Come on, Pete, with the mouth you have you don't want the teeth growing one on another, do you?" he laughed, trying to play down. "_That _would really hurt, more than taking it away right now"

Hearing that, probably feeling abandoned also by the only person he still trusted, Peter dip his face in the pillow. He chattered something confused, in which his brother was able to identify only a 'yours is more crooked'.

"I'll call the doctor" said the woman provocative, causing Peter to suddenly sit.

"No, I don't want her"

Angela nodded patiently. "Good child, then listen to mum"

The child shook vehemently the head. "Only if Nathan does it"

The brother widened his eyes, scared. "What…! No, Pete, do what mum says. I can't do it"

"Then I'll do it" and he put one of his hand in his mouth, causing Nathan's face to turn into pure horror. "_No_, Peter, please…" he look for his mother's eyes, and all he received back was a quite insisting glance.

"Mum, really, I'll hurt him"

"… can we just end it?" said the woman, exasperated.

The way she tightened so insistently the scarlet lips when she was nervous – or worse, prone to anger, the anger signed 'Angela Petrelli' – was the clear alarm signal that Nathan feared, and looking for a bit of courage, he turned towards his brother.

"Come on" he said reluctantly "… open"

Peter widened his mouth, and the boy inserted delicately two fingers within, watching carefully. He closed the thumb and the index finger around the tooth when he found it, before searching his little brother's eyes with his own. 

"You aren't going to bite my hand now, aren't you?"

Peter shook the head – for what he could, and Nathan bended his to see better. He stopped a bit when he noticed the small fist closed convulsively around his wrist. "You can breathe" he said, and laughed briefly. 

But Peter's eyes was progressively more insisting, as well as the shadow of his mother behind him.

"Ready?"

Peter nodded weakly, before shutting hard his eyes.

And holding his breath himself, Nathan pull with a sharp stroke.

"Ouch!" cried Peter suddenly, covering his mouth with both hands, but when he saw the tooth on the palm of Nathan's hand he couldn't avoid to smile relieved.

"… ewww" he said then, watching it more closely.

"It's a tooth, you have about twenty of them. You better get used to" his brother rebuked him kind-heartedly, ruffling his hair. "You want it?"

The kid thought a bit about it, before getting hold of it and fiddling with it.

"Thanks… thank you, Nathan. I must go to call Victoria" said Angela to Nathan, before leaving the room

The older of her sons was going to do the same, but Peter hold his arm back. "Hey"

"Mh?"

"… I want to give it to you" he handed back the tooth to him.

Nathan shook solemnly the head. "Don't even talk about it, this is important. You have to keep it"

Peter suddenly become more serious and concerned. "Listen" he lowered his voice, forcing Nathan to bend down a little. "But it's true that we must take it to the doctor?"

"The tooth!"

"Eh"

The boy snorted. "Who the hell told you that? It's yours, do what you want of it"

"… really?"

Nathan laughed. "I really wonder how can you dream such craps"

Suddenly Peter's little face seemed to light up. He wasn't so concerned about keep his voice down anymore. "Who's Samantha?"

The boy blinked twice. "Who...?"

"Samantha" the child smiled widely, showing perfectly the missing tooth. "It's written on the letter on your bedside table"

Nathan reflected a bit about it, before looking at his brother for a bunch of seconds without saying anything. Then he put a hand behind his back and loaded him on a shoulder, making him kick his legs and fidget desperately. "Nooo! Nathan, please, N-Nathaaan! No, the tickle no… Nathan!"

Hearing Peter laughing the boy laughed himself, intensifying the tickling.

"So you learn to rummage in _my _bedside table, brat"

"… okay, Nathan, I won't to it anymore… put me down, please!"

"Pray, pray, just stay good that maybe with that window you now have the mouth will get a bit of air and straighten itself"

Peter started punching his brother's back. "Your legs are twisted! Mom told it"

Nathan stopped. "Say 'mom told it' once more and I'll throw you out of the window"

Peter laughed. "I can fly!"

"Okay, then. Let's try"

"_Noooo!_"


End file.
